


No. 24 "You're Not Making Any Sense" (Gwaine)

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: Whumptober 2020 [25]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Deaf Character, Gen, Hurt Gwaine (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, Whumptober 2020, temporary disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Gwaine is deafened (temporarily) by a banshee's scream
Relationships: Gwaine & Percival (Merlin)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952440
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	No. 24 "You're Not Making Any Sense" (Gwaine)

Merlin’s lips were moving, but he wasn’t saying anything. That wasn’t right, Gwaine thought. His best friend had a quick wit and a cheerful voice and he was already ignored enough without having literally lost his ability to speak. Except then Percival was there too, and he was mouthing something without any sound coming out either. Oh God, it wasn’t Merlin’s voice, was it? It was Gwaine’s hearing.

“I can’t…” he replied, but trailed off when he realized he couldn’t hear himself. He didn’t want to shout at them by accident, or draw any more attention to the room. The crashes and shouts from the banshee tossing them all into walls would have been loud enough, even if the creature’s screams had only been audible to him. The idea that that horrible shrieking was the last thing Gwaine might ever hear, rather than Percival’s booming laugh or Elyan’s bright banter or even Leon’s caring admonitions, terrified him.

Percy grabbed his shoulders, and from the way his face moved it looked like  _ he _ was shouting. He was probably asking if Gwaine was okay. The hunter just shook his head in response, pointing to his ear. Something was dribbling down the side of his head, and his fingers came away red and tacky when he touched it. Merlin grabbed his hands, and quickly moved around him to look at his ears. Gwaine didn't know what he was expecting to see, but he tolerated the inspection nonetheless. The medic was frowning when he moved back into view, and he turned to say something to Percival.

"Hey," Gwaine said, not wanting to be left out. "I'm right here."

Merlin gave him a look, communicating perfectly well without words. "How am I supposed to talk to you when you can't hear me?" Neither of them knew any sign language. After a second, realization seemed to bloom over Merlin’s face and he stood up and went to grab a notebook off of the woman's kitchen. He scribbled something on it and brought it over to Gwaine. His handwriting was atrocious, but legible.  _ Ruptured eardrum. Probly heal. Take u to drs anyway. _

Gwaine nodded. It was good to ‘hear’ that it wouldn’t be permanent. He reached for the note pad, so he could reply if he wanted to without potentially shouting and to make sure that Percival had a way to talk to him too. The bigger hunter was helping him to his feet. Merlin said something, gesturing to the sigils painted on the walls and busted furniture. Gwaine figured that he was explaining that he was going to stay to help the old woman clean up while Percival, who had both hands on his shoulders and was clearly steering him towards the exit, took him to the ER. For once, he didn’t fight the coddling and let his friend lead him out of the house instead of insisting to help Merlin, who spent too much time cleaning anyway. He drew the line though at Percival opening the door for him. He was just deaf, not helpless.

As they followed the signs to the hospital, Gwaine wanted to ask what their cover story would be for how his eardrums ruptured, because obviously they couldn’t just say it was a banshee. Gunshot, maybe, too close to his ear? Though it would be a little hard to explain why he was doing target practice in the middle of the night. Or maybe they could say it was fireworks, and one went off too close to him by accident. He sighed in frustration. While Percival was driving, they had no way to discuss it, since he couldn’t very well take his hands off the wheel to write. The larger hunter would probably just come up with an explanation by himself, as he would probably be the one talking to the nurses and doctors.

They spent hours in the waiting room, which was because they had to wait for the ear, nose, and throat specialist to come in, as Percival explained with the pad of paper. Unable to chat with anyone, Gwaine had a lot of time to think. Merlin had thought from his quick assessment that it would probably heal and his hearing would come back, but what if that wasn’t the case? He had no doubt that his friends would all learn sign language to be able to talk to him, but most people didn’t know ASL, so interviewing people during hunts would be so much harder. Maybe he could learn to read lips, though he had heard that being able to do so accurately was far harder than most people thought. And more terrifyingly, he wouldn’t be able to hear monsters during hunts or respond to his friends shouting if they were in trouble.

Percival took the notepad from where it sat in Gwaine’s lap. “OK?” he wrote, holding it up. The other hunter just shrugged. He hadn’t realized his body language was so transparent. Percy held his hand out and squeezed gently when it was held, a comforting smile on his lips. He stood up abruptly, and it took Gwaine a second to realize the nurse must have called his name. She asked him something, which he let Percival answer, and kept his hand firmly clamped in his own to indicate that he wanted his friend to be able to come back with him.

The doctor was surprisingly good at making sure Gwaine knew what was going on, having him sit next to the computer instead of up on the examination table so he could read the explanations she typed out in a word document. She said that she could see a small rupture in both of his eardrums, which was apparently fairly unusual, but that there wasn’t much she could do for him right now except prescribe some painkillers and advise him to avoid yawning, which would apparently be rather painful and might cause additional damage. Of course, her mentioning that immediately made him need to yawn, and he quickly confirmed the validity of her statement.

“If your hearing doesn’t improve within a few weeks, we’ll reassess and start to discuss reparative surgery, but hopefully it won’t come to that,” she wrote before letting them go. Picking up the prescription painkillers was a bit of a pain, since Gwaine had to pass a clipboard back and forth continuously with the pharmacist in order for them to converse. Percival meanwhile stopped in the electronics store next door and bought a pair of nice padded headphones, explaining with a note written on the back of the receipt that even though Gwaine wouldn’t be able to use them to listen to music, he could wear them to dissuade strangers from trying to speak to him, and they could also protect his ears from getting anything in them that might cause an infection.

They met up with Merlin back at their motel room, and Gwaine promptly collapsed on one of the beds. It had been a very long day. He managed to resist the urge to yawn, and as he closed his eyes he realized that being hard of hearing might actually be an advantage for sleeping in crappy motels, where the walls were thin and one could always hear someone either watching tv or getting up to something in the room next to you. The sensory deprivation aspect of it was a little jarring, but he felt safe enough to sleep knowing his friends were on watch and they would wake him if anything happened that he couldn’t hear.


End file.
